Ideuhs are incipient thoughts

June 18, 2010

Dan
Pink, in his book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What
Motivates Us, argues that performance-based incentives – or “extrinsic
motivators” – work well for mechanical tasks, but for more creative and
cognitive work, incentives overly narrow your focus and inhibit the lateral
thinking that powers breakthrough ideas. Counter to that, he provides scientific
evidence that more right-brain, conceptual activities flourish best in the
presence of intrinsic motivation: the desire to do things because we like them,
because they’re interesting, because they matter, and because they’re part of
something important. Pink’s operating system revolves around three elements.

Autonomy – The urge to direct our own lives

Mastery – The desire to get better at something that matters

Purpose – The yearning to do what we do because it’s part of something
larger than ourselves

In Pink’s TED
Talk, he focuses on Autonomy. Traditional management, he says, works great
if you want compliance, but if you want engagement, self-direction works better.
He provides a few examples of ways in which some companies have fostered
self-directed, autonomous activity.

Atlassian, an Australian software
company, came up with FedEx Days, in which a few times a year employees get to
work on anything they want for 24 hours and work on anything you want. They’re
called FedEx days because you have to deliver something the next day, and
presentations are given at a company party.

Google is famous for 20% time,
allowing engineers to spend 20% of their time working on anything they want. About
half of Google’s new products each year result from this 20% time.

He also discusses the Results
Only Work Environment (ROWE) in which people don’t have schedules – they just
have to get their work done.

Every work situation is
different. For example, I worked at a global advertising agency in New York where
the ROWE system worked very well for creative teams – the only thing that
mattered was that they came up with brilliant ideas; nobody really cared how they
did it, although as an account manager it was my job to help them get there.
And while I had to be present and well-prepared for meetings and responsive to
clients, the fact was I could easily disappear and watch a movie around the
corner if I wanted to and nobody knew the difference. I worked late, but then I
took some long lunches doing Tai Ch’i a few blocks away.

I think highly of Google’s 20%
time because, unlike Atlassian’s FedEx Days or other special occasions, it
becomes part of your regular schedule – you just carve out 20% of your time to
work on your independent project.

Last Christmas, I read a
fascinating book about applying principles of Buddhism to business called The
Diamond Cutter, by Michael
Roach, a Buddhist monk who commuted from his New Jersey
monastery every day
to work at a diamond company in Manhattan. Roach has an even more radical system he calls
Circle Days. A Circle Day requires persuading your employer to let you take one
day off per week to do absolutely nothing work related (he negotiated to every
Wednesday off, with his salary reduced commensurately). The benefit, he says,
is greater mental clarity and a fresh perspective that allows breakthrough
ideas to flourish on the days you are
at work.

The term comes from the Tibetan tsam, which means “border” or “dividing
line” and is used to describe the art of getting away from work, going someplace
else, and drawing a circle around yourself where you can sit quietly and think.
Roach’s Circle Days also require a sympathetic family, because you’re not doing
household chores or anything else your family would normally expect from you on
your days off. The suggested routine goes something like this:

The first half of the day, up to
around 2pm, “must be spent by
yourself, alone, in silence.”

Spend the first hour and a half
or so sitting and thinking in complete silence.

Next, an hour or so of light
exercise, such as jogging, golf, light weight-lifting, yoga or tai ch’i.

Roach suggests drinking liquids
only during this time, and before you eat your first meal, or lunch, spend
another hour or two reading a meaningful book.

After lunch, a nap is appropriate
for refreshing mind and body.

Later in the afternoon calls for
applying yourself to a practical activity that has no relation to work. You
might take a class or work on some creative project.

The evening is for helping others
through volunteer work, coaching sports, etc.

The day ends with more quiet time spent reflecting on the day, not about work the next morning.

That is one tall order to fill,
and not everyone (myself included) is going to be able to swing it. But I
recommend reading The Diamond Cutter for a refreshing perspective on how you
conduct your own daily business, as well as its fascinating and strikingly deep
insights into both Buddhism and the diamond trade.

June 12, 2010

Last Friday afternoon I watched a
really cool video illustration of Dan Pink’s Drive: The Surprising Truth About What
Motivates Us. Dan Pink is a former
speechwriter for Al Gore and aide to Labor Secretary Robert Reich who has
become a best-selling writer on, as he puts it, “the changing world of work.”

The idea behind Drive is that workers are more motivated
by Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose than by performance-based financial
incentives. What's interesting is not so much the general idea, but rather the counter-intuitive evidence Pink uses to suggest that in some cases, incentives actually have the opposite effect you would imagine.

Which led me to the blog
of Michael Lebowitz, of Brooklyn digital agency Big Spaceship. You can see the video
there, or at Dan
Pink’s blog, although the easiest thing for you to do is to just watch it
here, and then by all means visit the other blogs I mention.

For students of effective
tweeting, I think it was the WOW that hooked me. I guess I’m a sucker for WOW.
And then, of course, “surprising” is a compelling word choice. “The surprising
truth about what motivates us” seemed a worthwhile thing to look into.

So I clicked on the link, and
about 30 seconds into the video I thought, “WOW. This is really cool.” I’m a
big fan of well-done info-graphics – and this video is an excellent example of
info-graphics in motion.

This whiteboard animation is set
against a portion of a talk given by Pink at the RSA (Royal Society for the Arts), who commissioned
British visual communication agency Cognitive Media to capture it
in cartoon images. Cognitive Media has
done a number of these for the RSA.

Now, here’s the funny thing. I
first watched Dan Pink present his ideas on a YouTube clip of his TED Talk that
Garr Reynolds posted on Presentation
Zen, and then sort of forgot about it. So I went back to Garr’s blog to
check out the original live presentation (which you can see below) and I
actually found it more persuasive than the animated video. That may have been
because it was now the third time I’d absorbed the message (and typically a
person needs to see a message three times before it really sinks in), or
because the live presentation is more complete, or simply because a live
presentation delivered well is more effective. It’s worth watching both videos
a few times, and visiting the post on Presentation Zen will provide some
additional perspective.

I think what it comes down to is
that great info-graphics can play a powerful role in sparking interest and
giving us a panoramic view of complex ideas, but that inevitably we need to go
to the source.

June 10, 2010

What are some of the common
practices behind successful branded Facebook pages? Frederic Baffou, a former Philip Morris exec who blogs on marketing at Customer Centric, is writing a three-part series this month on
social media marketing.

In the first article,
Baffou reports on results of following eight brands’ Facebook pages over a
three-month period.While it’s not
exactly a scientific sample, I personally think we can learn a lot from
disciplined observation of smaller data sets. Here are some of his interesting
findings:

Brands usually post less than
once per day regardless of the product category and size of their fan base.

58% of posts fall into three main
categories.

Luxury brands tend to focus on
sponsored events.

Specialty brands tend to focus on
new product information and online sales.

What do we get from this? Once
again, we’re seeing the importance of maintaining consistency: specifically,
maintaining a consistent schedule and focusing on core ideas.

Of course those who know me best
know that I’ve been an inveterate doodler since childhood. My father was also a
doodler, and it was one of his legal-pad-sized mega-doodles that inspired me to
work at my craft. Unfortunately it’s an incredibly unproductive craft, more
like a bad habit. Doodles are art that gets thrown away.

So I’m always encouraged when I
learn about famous doodlers like Malcolm X. and Alex Haley, or
when I hear news
that doodlers have improved cognitive function (because I swear that although I
may be doodling in client meetings, I’m absorbing every word!). This is one of
my recent doodles.

Recently an agency
colleague/friend suggested I host a site where doodlers can share their work. I
think it’s a great idea, so I’m thinking of starting up a new blog which would
be organized like a photo gallery, where people could submit their doodles to
me and I would post them. If I had the money, I might make it more of a community
image-sharing site where visitors can create their own galleries and post
directly. It would also be great to have a more sophisticated photo-viewer that
allows viewers to magnify details.

I’m interested in thoughts or
ideas people may have on this, so please post your comments!

May 28, 2010

Michael Gass’ Fuel Lines is another one of my
current favorite blogs. Michael Gass is an advertising agency new business
consultant who specializes in advising small- to medium-sized agencies, and he
uses his blog to evangelize for social media as a powerful tool for growing
agency business. As director of business development for Catapult, a medium-sized Silicon Valley
agency focused on digital, direct, and content marketing, I find Fuel Lines
incredibly stimulating.

The heart of all agency social
media activities, according to Gass, is the agency blog. He recommends that the
agency blog be kept separate from the official agency website. The blog is not
the place to plug your business – that’s the role of the agency website – but
rather a place to engage your
audience in discussions of broader marketing
subjects that matter most to them. If people are attracted to your point of
view as an agency principal, some will naturally gravitate towards your agency
when the time is right.

Gass is a prolific blogger – and
his intelligent strategy of consistently redistributing older posts via Twitter
rather than letting them disappear in the archives of his blog makes him seem
even more prolific. Nevertheless, even Gass occasionally has to deal with
writer’s block. In Overcoming
Social Media Writer’s Block, Gass offers some practical tips on keeping
your blog posts coming. “Most importantly,” he notes, “It is not [what] I want to write about. I have
to write about what my audience wants to read.”

Focus on your audience is the key
to all successful communications, whether we are talking about advertising, blogging,
or presentations. If you read Garr Reynold’s blog or book, Presentation
Zen, you will certainly pick up on his exhortations to focus on the “particular situation and audience.” Advertising
agencies constantly struggle with clients who are overly focused on what they
want to communicate rather than what is relevant (about their product or
service) to the audience. It’s always a delicate balancing act. We don’t go out
to make advertising, presentations, or even blogs without wanting to say something.
But communication is about connecting, and one-sided monologues don’t connect.

May 26, 2010

One of the challenges of writing a
blog is keeping it focused. Committing to a subject and gaining mastery over it
are challenging enough. Maintaining a consistent pace while keeping the content
fresh and providing value to your
audience require yet more discipline. So I am always impressed by blogs that
have been able to achieve focus, relevance, and novelty.

A few months ago, Amy Suardi, a
former colleague whom I hadn’t heard from in over ten years launched her blog Frugal Mama. She skillfully seeded
interest on Facebook, creating a Facebook
page, and reconnecting with everyone she knew, including old friends like
me. (Hey, wait a minute, why haven’t I
done those things yet? Doh! Social Media 101!)

Frugal Mama is about how to save
money and still live better. What I love about Frugal Mama is that it’s extremely
practical, with excellent tips that are both effective and relatively easy to
act on with
a few changes in lifestyle. One of my favorite posts (and one of
the most popular) is Never
Ask Again: Where Does All The Money Go?, where you can download a printable
chart for keeping track of daily expenses. Now I know this is nothing new and
my grandparents probably did it, but until reading Amy’s blog I never had. Amy’s
take on this is that financial record-keeping seems overly complex, but a
simple low-tech chart you can keep in the kitchen really makes it simple and
easy. So I printed one out and redid it in Excel, making some tweaks that made
more sense for my family, such as adding a line-item for beer. And guess what:
it worked!

Keeping track of things like how
much you’re spending on gas, lunch, and that money- and adrenalin-sucker coffee
– or how consistently those $600 home-repair issues keep popping up – really does
give you great insight into your cash-flow, and with that insight comes
control, and a certain calm. For example, I’ve been telling myself for years
that I should pack my lunch every day instead of blowing money on burritos and
deli sandwiches. But having to actually write down how much I was spending on
lunch suddenly made it easy to change my habits.

Frugal Mama exemplifies several
things that make up good communications: simplicity, relevance, consistency,
and freshness. What’s more, it’s animated by a strong Reason Why: saving money
on little things can add up to qualitatively bigger improvements.

May 22, 2010

A couple of weeks ago I watched
an interesting webinar
by Guy Kawasaki on using Twitter. It inspired
me to get my own blog back into shape and try to make it actually relevant to
people. Guy demonstrated how he manages his Twitter campaigns through ObjectiveMarketer, a social media marketing
and analytics platform. ObjectiveMarketer lets you send out messages via
various channels, including Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, and track the response.
It also lets you schedule your posts and set them for auto-repeat.

If you’ve seen several of my
posts repeated throughout a day on Twitter and Facebook, that’s the auto-repeat
working. What that allows you to do is establish frequency. Frequency allows
you to expose your message to more people over time as well as maintain
presence with those who may
have seen but not clicked on your post the first
few times. It’s the same principle that has long been at work in advertising,
in which advertisers broadcast TV commercials or insert print ads in a flight
pattern. Typically an advertiser needs viewers to see their advertising several
times before it sinks in or triggers action. The action I’m seeking is for
people to click through to my blog. Hopefully, I’m providing something of value
in return.

At the end of the webinar Guy
provides information on how to obtain a 90-day trial on ObjectiveMarketer, so I
signed up. ObjectiveMarketer is a little rough around the edges and needs some
improvement in terms of intuitive usability. At first I wasn’t sure if I had
successfully linked my Facebook account. However, after emailing my questions I
was pleasantly surprised to receive a quick response from ObjectiveMarketer’s
founder (on a Saturday) who kindly helped me through my learning curve.

While I have managed social media
campaigns for clients, I’ve only recently begun to do so for myself. What was
interesting to me was the amount of visibility the tool gave me on responses to
things I put out on Twitter and Facebook. Most of us are Facebook users, but aside
from the comments and likes our posts may receive, it’s never clear how many
people are actually paying attention to the things we say. To some, it may not
really matter. Others, however, may have some interest in actually driving
traffic to something and would like to see the results. ObjetiveMarketer gives
you that insight.

In the seven days since I started
this experiment, I’ve had 432 click-throughs on my posts. Not mind-blowing but
nevertheless gratifying (thank you). I’ve also had several follow my blog. Alas,
I’ve enjoyed only one retweet, and as Guy mentioned, the key to expanding your
audience is saying something interesting enough for people to retweet. So
follow me on Twitter @maxterry3. And try out
ObjectiveMarketer.

If you have the time and
inclination, it’s always interesting and instructive to read a favorite blog
from beginning to end. The practice provides valuable insight into the ways
blogs evolve and develop character over time. The hardest thing about writing a
blog is maintaining the discipline and self-confidence to keep it going, so it’s
useful to see how others have maintained their pace. And since you will usually
find that blogs improve over time, it’s encouraging in the early stages as you
develop your own pace. Like exercise, it’s important to maintain discipline,
even doing just a little at a time and making gradual progress.

I thought Garr’s third post – PowerPoint
abuse in Japan: we can learn a lot from the Japanese bento – was particularly
compelling. It tells the story of the insight he had on a train
enjoying a simple
Japanese box lunch, then looking across the aisle at a salaryman reading through a bad PowerPoint presentation crammed with
text. The experience became the impetus for his book,
where he notes: “The Japanese bento contains appropriate content arranged in the
most efficient, graceful manner. The bento is presented in a simple, beautiful,
and balanced way. Nothing lacking. Nothing superfluous. Not decorated, but
wonderfully designed. … When was the last time you could say the same for a
presentation?”

I’ve been a big bento fan since
first visiting Japan in 1989, and living in Tokyo for six years during the 90s.
The idea that even at a 7-11, you can get a simple, tasty, nicely arranged, and
nutritious meal for $3, always struck me as one of the things that set Japan
apart. When I worked at the Japanese ad agency Dentsu, enjoying a box lunch
was one of those “moments of Zen” that created an oasis of calm amidst the
chaos and clutter of my office environment.

Garr goes into more depth in his
book about the way bento are constructed and how the various elements create
nutritional as well as aesthetic balance, and makes some observations of how
the principles of “presentation” in a good bento can carry over into slide presentations.
One of the things I admire about Garr is that he demonstrates a genuine appreciation
and knowledge of Zen aesthetics and presents them in an instructive and
unpretentious manner. So, I hope he doesn’t mind my frequent links to his blog
as my own way of processing and sharing his insights.

May 18, 2010

In keeping with the subject of
Garr Reynolds and presentation, one of my sales colleagues sent me this
inspiring TED presentation by Simon Sinek, “How great leaders inspire action.”
This is interesting on two levels: the presentation itself and the subject
matter.

On the presentation front,
Simon’s talk is a great example of simply doing away with slides altogether.
Simon simply illustrates his talk with the use of a large notepad, using a
total of two sheets of paper.

The point of Simon’s talk is that
great leaders inspire through belief, and start with “Why.” His Golden Circle
demonstrates that people don’t buy What you do, or How you do it, but Why you
do it. It’s a persuasive argument, and makes you pause to think – Why do you do
what you do?

May 16, 2010

Over the past few months, I’ve
found myself returning again and again to Garr Reynold’s blog Presentation Zen.
A friend at Duarte Design recommended I read his book, also titled Presentation
Zen. If you have to make and give presentations, and most of us do, Garr
Reynolds is an amazing
source of wisdom and practical advice.

Being in
advertising, presentation is part of daily life for me. I’ve sat through my
share of mind-numbing presentations consisting of slide after slide crammed
with too much data and too many bullet points. And while I’ve always struggled
to keep my slides simple, it’s always been, well, a struggle. Experiencing Garr’s
extremely minimalist approach really made the scales fall from my eyes.

Garr’s signature presentation
style makes use of quality images displayed full-bleed or
elegantly layered against a dark background, with very few words employed to
make the most fundamental point. The basic idea is: one slide, one point. At
first I thought his approach was more appropriate for lecture-style
presentations, in which the presenter is performing in front of a larger audience,
and that it wouldn’t work in real-world client meetings.

However, after a few
months of progressively peeling away the layers of information in my slides, I
had an opportunity to create a presentation on content marketing and social
media, and decided to go for broke. I was
pleasantly surprised by the results and the positive energy in the room.

Most of us go into a presentation
in a defensive mode, expecting that our audience wants to see rock-solid proof of
every point we plan to make, or an irrefutable chain of logic. And the result
is … slide after slide crammed with too much data and too many bullet points. I
think the value that Garr brings is in demonstrating that if we can let go of our
fears, stop hiding behind our slides and step out in front of them, using them
to illustrate and emphasize what we want to communicate, we will all be more
effective presenters.

It takes discipline to capture
one simple idea on each slide and to rely on our own mastery of a subject to
furnish the fuel for our talk. It means we have to know what we’re talking
about and have the confidence not to read off the screen. So, for anyone who
labors over the order of their bullet points, I recommend losing the bullet
points and reading Garr’s book and blog.